


The first week

by JennyDyn



Category: Amphibia (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Mute Marcy Drosselmeyer, Muteness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated T for language, Tags May Change, Wilderness Survival, does this count as angst? better safe than sorry i guess, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-10-26 03:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20735639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennyDyn/pseuds/JennyDyn
Summary: I love Marcy, so I decided to write about what I think she's been up to. That's it, that's the fic.





	1. Day 1

Marcy awoke to a strange sound. It wasn’t the usual soft beeping of her alarm clock, but rather a rustle. A rustle of what exactly, she wasn’t sure. Leaves, maybe? Or perhaps a bag of chips? If Sasha and Anne were stealing from her stash of snacks again, she would fucking kill the other two girls. She’d bought those with her own money, goddammit!

As she felt the last remains of sleep slipping away, a few more things came to Marcy’s attention. First of all, her head was throbbing with pain. Second, she wasn’t in her bed. The surface she was laying on was far too hard and bumpy to be her mattress. It almost felt like there were little sharp rocks were stabbing into her back, settling in the nooks and crannies of her body.

And fuck, it hurt.

When the teen finally got up and opened her eyes, she realized something else. She was in a forest. Honest to god, in the middle of the woods. And not even in the sort of backwoods she’d expect for the city, no! It was warm and humid, with tons of tropical-looking plants and strange mushrooms. Where the hell was she?!

Marcy rubbed the side of her head, trying to dull the pain. How’d she get here? The last thing she remembered was hanging out with Anne and Sasha… Yes, they’d stolen that weird music box (or more accurately, Anne had). And then, when they’d opened it, a flash of bright light had engulfed them. After that, Marcy had no memory of what’d happened.

A small part of her considered magic. Maybe she was about to have a life-changing adventure. She shrugged that off pretty quickly, though. Marcy wasn’t a fucking anime character about to save the world with the power of friendship.

Well, it was no use wondering about that now.

Marcy got up, looking around once more. To her left, there was a cliff, far too steep for her to climb. There was a small cavern in it’s side, but that wouldn’t do the girl much good. Next to that, a river opened up to what Marcy assumed was the ocean. In the opposite direction, some of the grass has been trampled, forming a path. Only one way to go, she guessed.

As she followed the path, Marcy saw many critters and other bugs crawling around. A lot of them were much larger than she was used to, but she could just chalk that up to the foreign ecosystem. Marcy knew how creepy Australian wildlife could get. Now that she thought about it, was she in Australia?

Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a roar, causing Marcy to jump. Fuck, that didn’t sound good at all. The teen shuffled into a nearby bush. Soon after, a huge insect came into view. It was red, with enormous claws and purple eyes.

For fucks’ sake, why were bugs larger than her now? Marcy knew she was short, but this was getting ridiculous. That settled it, an 8-foot tall praying mantis couldn’t exist anywhere other than the god-forbidden continent of Australia. Now, that posed the question: how the hell did she get to the other side of the world?!

Luckily, the giant critter didn’t seem to have noticed her yet.

Marcy held her breath, watching the beast. She was completely still, trying to not make a single sound.

There weren’t many times in her life where Marcy was glad about her muteness, but this was definitely one of them. If she had been accustomed to making noises, Marcy wasn’t sure if she’d had the self-control required to not shriek in surprise when the insectoid turned it’s head to look directly at her bush.

Marcy looked at the creature in anticipation. Maybe, just maybe, it hadn’t seen her. Then, it let out an ear-shattering roar and dashed straight at her.

Alright, it was clear her cover was blown now. Marcy bolted from the bush as fast as she could. She jumped over roots, sprinted as fast as her little legs could carry her. The human was smaller and lighter than the monster chasing her, so she had an advantage when it came to maneuvering.

Marcy ran for her life.

\---

Finally, after what felt like hours, she managed to shake the pursuer off her tail. She was exhausted, doubled over panting. This wasn’t the best environment to be wearing a hoodie in, now was it? She took the extra layer of clothing off.

Marcy let her gaze wander again, and to her surprise, recognized the area. Fuck, she was back right where she started! But it’s not like she could start walking again, she was far too tired for that. Besides, she wasn’t sure if she could survive another encounter with that praying mantis creature. It had been way too close for comfort the first time!

And well, it was starting to get dark, too. And she was really tired. Tomorrow was a new day, it’d be fine if she just slept a bit.

The ground would be way too hard to sleep on, though. Maybe she could gather leaves or something to make a little nest for herself? Yeah, that was a good idea.

And then it started raining.

Marcy grabbed a few patches of moss of the ground and sprinted to the nearest shelter. That happened to be the little crevice in the cliffside she’d remarked earlier.

Setting down the moss and her hoodie, Marcy made the most comfortable bed she could considering the circumstances. It still wasn’t really pleasant, but way better than nothing. Besides, for her first time building nest, Marcy thought she’d done okay.

When she was finally settled, Marcy let her thoughts drift. Were Anne and Sasha here as well? She still had no idea how she’d ended up in this strange forest, but that music box was her best bet for now. They’d all been there when opening it, so it stood to reason the other two teens would be here as well.

Marcy hoped they were okay, wherever they were.


	2. Day 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! This is a short chapter with not much action, but please bear with me for the time being. I had to establish how Marcy's gonna be living, but I promise the next one will be more interesting
> 
> Also, damn it's hard to write a day's worth of content. If there's anything you'd like to see Marcy doing, please comment it and I'll see if I can add it to the fic!

The next morning, Marcy woke up hungry.

Groggy, she stretched her arms out wide. And promptly managed to slam them into cold, hard rock. Ouch. 

Well, it’s not like she could fall asleep after that, so she might as well get up.

Marcy opened her eyes. A soft glow was coming in from outside, but it was still hard to see. Se didn’t care though since it’s not like there was anything of interest in the cavern. What she did notice, though, was that her makeshift bed was scattered across the floor. She’d probably kicked it apart in her sleep.

She rose up to her feet, holding onto a stalagmite for balance.

When she stepped outside, Marcy was hit with a sudden wave of humidity. And had it really been this warm yesterday? She_ had_ taken off her hoodie, and she didn’t do that very often…

She’d known Australia was hot, but come on! How could anyone live here? But come to think of it, maybe nobody did. Marcy had just assumed she was on the down under, but maybe she’d ended up on some remote island with no human population!

Marcy’s stomach grumbled, interrupting her thought process. Right. What could she eat? There was some fruit hanging from a tree nearby, and a few strange mushrooms surrounding the area. She knew better than to eat strange fruit and mushrooms, though. Who knows what sort of poisons those had!

The other option was to hunt, but that didn’t seem very appealing either. The only animals she’d seen so far were different bugs and critters, and she definitely wasn’t going to eat those.

Yeah, the fruit and mushrooms were the better options here. Fuck safety, Marcy wasn’t about to eat worms.

She walked over to the tree and plucked a fruit from its branches. It was like a pear, but the color was a fiery red instead of the usual yellow-green.

Marcy bit into it. It was surprisingly sweet, like strawberries or something like that. If this was going to kill her, Marcy honestly had no problem with that. It’d be a delicious way to go.

\---

After eating a truly insane amount of the pear-strawberry things, The teen decided she should make some sort of plan on what to do next. She still had no clue where she was, and even less how she got here.

She was leaning towards magic more every time she thought about it. 

But she kind of didn’t want to believe that. If she really had been transported here by some sort of spell, she could forget any hope of finding her way back home. It wasn’t as if she liked her life bouncing around the foster system, but at least she’d had the basic necessities!

And the internet. And friends. And all sorts of things she had no hope of finding here.

Marcy sighed. Well, speculating about this would do her no good now. She should focus on survival first and foremost.

So, she decided to scout out the area.

\---

After a few hours of exploring, Marcy retired back to her cave. She hadn’t found anything interesting, and it was starting to get way too hot again.

The path was still there, but Marcy hadn’t followed it this time. She really didn’t want another run-in with that praying mantis creature. Or any other huge bug, for that matter.

From a logical standpoint, the track was the best way to find civilization. Any logical person would have followed it. But you see, here's the thing: Marcy wasn’t a logical person. She was a tired teenage girl who's only survival skills came from memes, YouTube and video games. And she was scared.

Scared she’d find more giant insects. Scared she’d find_ nothing_.

As long as she didn’t go down that path, Marcy could pretend there was something there. A city, a campsite, anything, But deep down she knew that couldn’t possibly be the case.

And she wasn’t ready to face reality just yet.

\---

A few hours later, Marcy was laying in the shade of a tree. She’d eaten some more fruit and even tried the mushrooms. Lucky for her, those hadn’t been poisonous either (Or if they had, there’d been no effect yet).

She’d also discovered another problem with living in the woods like this. After she’d first woken up here yesterday, Marcy had spent all her time focusing on survival. Now that she finally had some free time, she had no idea what to do.

Back home, she could do all sorts of things on the internet when she had nothing better to focus on. Obviously, that wasn’t the case here. She didn’t have her phone with her, and even if she did, she doubted there would be any reception, let alone wifi.

Bored, the teen dug through her pockets, and to her surprise, came across something. She pulled the object out. It was a marker.

Marcy wasn’t an artist, but it wasn’t like she had anything else to do. It’s not like anyone would see the drawings, anyway.

Marcy moved back to her cave and started scribbling on the walls. First, she wrote the obligatory “Marcy was here”. How could she not? It was classic.

\--- 

Many doodles later, Marcy realized she was getting tired. She didn’t have an exact way to tell the time, but it didn’t feel very late.

She shuffled to the entrance of her cave and looked out into the sky. And would you look at that, the sun was setting! Usually, Marcy stayed up a few hours later, but living in the wilderness was exhausting.

The girl gathered some more moss and made another throwaway bed for the night. She settled down, yawning.

And so, Marcy fell asleep in this strange world again.


	3. Day 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry it's taken so long for me to get this out! This chapter is a longer one, so I hope that makes up for the wait! I hope yall enjoy it!
> 
> Edit: I forgot to set the chapter title to day 3, but that's fixed now

When Marcy woke up the next day, she didn’t get up immediately.

The light flooding in from the entrance let her know it was already morning. It also made it difficult to fall back asleep.

Marcy didn’t care though. She was tired, this strange world could wait. And what could she even do? Draw on the walls again? Yeah, sleep was the better option here.

And then something outside screeched. 

Yeah, fuck that. Marcy rolled over to her side and pressed her eyes shut. She was not about to go outside to whatever giant bug was making that noise.

Then whatever it was shrieked again. And again. And then it grunted. Then screeched again.

Marcy waited for five minutes. Then ten. Fifteen.

But the noise didn’t stop. It got quieter, yes, but never stopped.

Well, it’s not like she could fall back asleep when something was screaming outside. Might as well see what was happening.

Marcy got up as quietly as she could. She crept towards the entrance of the cave, sneaking close to the wall.

She peeked outside. To her surprise, there was no abnormally large bug in the area.

Or well. There was. But it was dead.

The first thing she noticed was that the noises were much farther away now. There were no more terrified shrieks, no more aggressive screeching. Just the occasional faraway grunt.

The second thing was the striking red color of the squished insect on the ground. For a moment Marcy wondered if it was the praying mantis that had been tormenting her earlier. However, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be some sort of cockroach.

It was much smaller than the other bug Marcy had encountered, but still huge compared to the beetles back home.

Marcy walked towards the pear-strawberry (Pearberry? Strawpear?) tree, intending to grab a fruit to chew on. However, there were only a few left! 

Well. There was a lot left, but almost all of them were destroyed on the ground.

Marcy grabbed one off the tree. She definitely couldn’t survive the whole day on three fruit though. Let alone tomorrow, or the day after that!

For a moment, her mind drifted to the roach carcass at her feet. She could probably eat that.

But no, that was gross. She was not about to eat some fat bug!

She’d just have to get by with the mushrooms. 

Except there weren’t many of those either.

Whatever. She’d be fine. 

Besides, she had better things to do than ponder about this. Like figuring out what had happened here, for one! 

Marcy glanced around the area, searching for any indication of what’d gone down.

And that’s when she noticed them.

Footprints.

They didn’t seem human though, not by any means. Whatever had left them had two large toes instead of the usual five. 

They were still footprints though. And they seemed to be bipedal ones.

The trail of imprints continued on the path Marcy had gone down on the first day. The teen could make out the tracks for another hundred or so feet, but after that, they vanished into the wilderness.

Marcy didn’t know if she should follow them. Just because this creature was bipedal didn’t mean it was intelligent, especially if it wasn’t even human!

And now that the girl thought about it, what could it even be? The only other bipedal creatures Marcy could think about were birds and apes, and neither of those had two huge toes like that! The footprints were  _ big _ , too.

God, everything in here was so big.

Marcy thought her Australia theory was slowly falling apart.

Maybe she  _ was _ a fucking isekai protagonist, after all. 

This was too much for her right now. 

Marcy went back to sleep. 

\---

An hour or so later, Marcy woke back up. For a moment, she thought she incident had all been a dream. 

Then she walked back outside.

The scene unfolded before her once again. Fucking hell.

Marcy decided she should probably investigate this more.

The teen crept along the narrow path, following the footsteps. She should have done this earlier. The imprints left in the mud were difficult to spot. The best clue Marcy had was the dried bug blood coloring every mark on the ground.

After following the trail for around 10 minutes, Marcy came across something peculiar. Tied to a tree branch was a red cloth. The fabric was frayed, it looked like it’d been ripped from something in a hurry.

Marcy untied the piece from the branch, feeling the texture. It was rough and kind of itchy, like those socks and sweaters you got for Christmas but never actually wore.

She turned the strip of material over in her hands. And to her surprise, she discovered some writing on the other side! 

But some of the words were cut off. Others were blurred with moisture. Whatever this had been written with obviously wasn’t waterproof.

Marcy wouldn’t make out much, but she thought she did recognize some words here and there. One of them was “lost”, and another one a bit later on read “to”.

Fuck, this just got a lot weirder. And a lot more interesting.

\---

After finding the strange piece of cloth, Marcy walked back to her cave.

The sun was approaching it’s highest point in the sky, which meant it was getting hot again. Or well, hotter than usual. If Marcy had noticed one thing about this place during her stay, it was that it was hot and humid all the time.

The middle of the way was the worst, though.

The girl was practically  _ melting _ .

When Marcy was finally back in the darkness of her cave, she decided it’d be best to write down everything of note on the wall. She still had the marker, and this was definitely a better use for it than making dumb drawings.

So, she got to work.

\---

After a few hours of scribbling down events and theories, Marcy decided she was finished.

There were still a lot of things she didn’t understand, but she’d managed to figure out what was written the piece of fabric.

_ “If lost, return to Vale-” _

It cut off after that.   
  


Marcy had no idea who this Vale person was, but she intended to find them.

Not necessarily to return the cloth, no. 

But because they were the only proof Marcy had of sentient life in this place.

Marcy had been increasingly worried about the possibility of there not being anyone else here, so she was relieved to find out there was another person she could find. And hopefully, talk to. Or well, not talk. Communicate with, rather.

She hoped this Vale knew sign language. Or at least had a piece of paper Marcy could write things on.

The teen added that onto her notes.

\---

Marcy was starting to get hungry.

She’d been snacking on fruit while making notes, but now she’d run out.

Before the whole hassle this morning, Marcy wouldn’t have been worried. But now her only real source of food had been compromised.

And she was needed to eat.

Marcy knew she could probably make it through the night, but then what? She really didn’t want to go and have to hunt for food, but it’s not like she knew which plants she could eat either. She’d gotten lucky with the strawpears, but Marcy didn’t want to risk being poisoned.

Though, the cockroach carcass was still outside…

Marcy knew people ate bugs in other cultures, so it was fair to assume it would be safe, right? Especially if she managed to cook it somehow…

The idea of eating that thing still repulsed her, though.

But it had to be better than starving to death, right?

Now Marcy would just need to find a way to cook it.

And starting a fire couldn’t be  _ that _ hard, could it?

\---

So, it turns out starting a fire  _ was _ in fact that hard.

Marcy didn’t know what she’d expected but it definitely wasn’t this! It had all seemed so easy on Suspicion Island…

The teen spun a stick against another one the way she’d seen survivalists do, but to no avail. She threw it at the ground, putting her face in her hands. What was she going to do?

Marcy took a few shuddering breaths. What was she even doing?

She missed home. She missed Anne and Sasha. She missed having her biggest worry be whether or not she was going to pass a test. She couldn't believe she took all of that for granted just a few days ago.

Marcy picked the stick up again. She rubbed the branch between her palm, trying to create enough friction to create a fire.

And this time, like a miracle, it actually worked.

It was a small fire, but Marcy wasn’t about to complain.

Quickly, before the flame could die out, the girl tore out a piece of the insect’s flesh. She pierced it with a twig and put it over the burning leaves and wood.

Marcy bit into it. It wasn’t good, not by any means, but still better than she’d expected. It’d have to do for now.

\---

Marcy sat next to her makeshift campfire for the remainder of the night. 

She watched the stars. The teen tried to look for constellations but found none. In fact, the night sky looked completely different from the one back home.

It was beautiful, though.


End file.
